'The Wedding Present' by Viscountess Margaret Long

'The Wedding Present' by Viscountess Margaret Long

Michael Daniel

The Wedding Present: Riches of Spiritual Wisdom for Life's Journey
by Viscountess Margaret Long (Gracewing, 2001, 185 pp, A$50.95). Available from AD Books.

The Wedding Present is an anthology of spiritual texts, principally from Eastern Orthodox writers. The author, Viscountess Long, converted to the Orthodox faith in 1986. The impetus for this book was a request from a friend to give her a notebook containing spiritual maxims and passages for prayer and thought as a wedding present. What has emerged is a beautiful collection of extracts, useful for prayer by all Christians.

Some of the most inspiring passages from the history of Christian spirituality are to be found in this anthology, passages which, in her introduction, Viscountess Long states she had originally made during a period of severe testing in her own life "when I had clung to them as though to a rock".

The Wedding Present would be a useful basis for prayer and reflection and would make an ideal gift.